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Retreat in United States

Hi everybody,

I will be travelling for the very first time to the States in the Spring or late Summer of 2014 to lead a long and intensive retreat of five or six days. This retreat could take place on the East or West coast and should be organized with the following directions in mind:

The entire retreat should be available on internet and people shoud be able to follow and join from anywhere in the world ( apart from North Korea, unfortunately).

The whole thing should be organized in a way it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to take part, some of our members and priests have financial issues and it should not stop them from coming.

I won t take a penny for this and will pay for my plane ticket. The retreat in Bruxelles was a real eye opener: I am going to ask two people to step forward and be in charge of the organization of this event so everything can run smoothly.

Please, could you think about it and I would appreciate if people in the coming retreat at Yugen's place talk about this and come up with clear possibilities.

I would expect people who say they are going to turn up to effectively turn up. So please don't take this lightly and if you want to come, you come.

thank you for sharing your plans with us this way. I will most definitely attend and will do my best to support the organisation of this event, although my gut feeling tells me that one needs two "natives" to find the proper location etc.

Taigu,
It is difficult for me to gracefully accept such a deep compliment - I will just bow and say "Thank you." I am grateful to have the opportunity to share this practice with you. I will do whatever I can.

Dosho, it would be great to work with you on this. The primary issue to decide all together will be location.....

Deep bows
Yugen

Originally Posted by Taigu

Thank you, Yugen, for offering your help.
I totally trust you.
This is great news.

This time around financially I can handle West or East and will be attending.
I will refrain from jumping in as a second organizer as I am not state side and so forth but offer any help I can to those organizing however I can with what ever I can.

Thank you Seimyo, yes, I did think about it over the last few days and I came to the same conclusion: the East Coast woud be best.
Yes Daido, of course, you are welcome. Actually, the people in charge of the organization can be more than two.

I have no idea if I will be able to make it or not as I will be right smack dab in the middle of my graduate school. However, I will make every effort to attend. I will also be willing to provide whatever support I can offer. I will start saving my frequent flyer miles, just in case.

I will absolutely attend, hopefully for the whole thing, definitely for a weekend! There is plenty of time to plan, so wherever work lands, I will let them know. I would love to help organize in any way possible. Maybe the people interested in helping & organizing could do a Skype/Google+ chat? Figure out what will go into planning and registering and all that?

I would love to attend. Owing to the nature of my work, it takes about six months notice for me to clear an entire week on my calendar. So, I will await further details on when and where. Looking forward to it.

There is a lot of positive enthusiasm for this retreat, and that is absolutely great. I notice several people have generously volunteered to help organizing. Might it be a good idea to have a "retreat group" or committee work on issues such as scheduling, location, logistics, and commitment timelines related to all these so we can make proposals and recommendations to Taigu and the group of attendees? There are lots of smart people here, and having a group of three or four be responsible for herding all the zen "cats" might be a really good idea....

I would be very interested in attending in person, but I honestly don't know where we will be next summer. That is close to another possible move for my husband's job. I guess I will try to put some money aside and go from there.

Taigu and Yugen, the monastery I am visiting this weekend is located in Andover New Jersey. It's about an hour and a half drive from New York City and there is bus service available. They do occasionally open their doors to other traditions, groups/Sanghas. They only ask that the general rules of the monastery are followed at all times. They have dormitories, large meditation halls, class rooms, a kitchen and cafeteria, etc...I can't promise anything, but they might be open to allowing us to use their facilities for this retreat. I can ask if you wish, but I am sure they would like to hear from the "teacher" before making a decision. Please let me know and I can give you the contact information.

It seems like the preference is to have this event on the coasts, but I thought I would throw out a Midwestern option for consideration: Ryumonji is in NE Iowa, is incredibly beautiful, and is (I think) the only traditionally constructed Japanese style zen monastery in North America (not important but interesting for sure). Shoken Winecoff, a dharma heir of Katagiri roshi & the Abbott, is a wonderful, warm, and open person. They might be open to hosting the sesshin. The Ryumonji website is http://www.ryumonji.org/

I'm about in the same position as Jinmei. My life is still rather unstable, and I don't know what to expect about that time. However, I would very much like to attend, and will do what I can to help, starting with this advice:

DON'T come to Arizona. It's not that I don't want you here, it's just that I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. And anyway I would love an excuse to be elsewhere.

I will start planning and gathering resources as they come.

Gassho,
Julia

"The Girl Dragon Demon", the random Buddhist name generator calls me....you have been warned.

Chuck:
Thank you so much for the suggestion. We have a few options that Sangha colleagues have contributed - I think the best thing to do is put them in the committee's "inbox" and shuffle them around and explore the options. It may be that we make inquiries of several locations and see what works.... if you would provide the contact information to me I will make sure there is follow up. Thank you!

Julia:
We will do our best to satisfy your desire for a change of locale! I would imagine late spring/summer would also be quite warm. I really hope you can attend.

I know it isn't the first thing that comes to mind, but any thoughts on Vegas? I organized an event a couple of years ago that involved people from all over the country. It just ended up being the economically feasible option. The casinos and the airlines all offer deals on flights, and all the hotels do really good group rates. Not to mention most from California, the Southwest or the Mountain West could drive. And the flight from New York looks to only be around a hundred dollars. I've played a lot a shows and done some events there over the years, and it's always been very easy to get things off the ground. Though I imagine Vegas isn't what Julia (or probably anyone) was thinking of...

All the hotels are equipped for conferences and most offer full packages which include catering/an event organizer. It's a city built for events.

That being said, I know Salt Lake and Austin are Delta/AirFrance hubs (meaning cheaper flights) with affordable hotels. Those are the places that come to mind when I think of an affordable place to hold a gathering that involves people from all over.

A monastery or campground in a state park may be the way to go if this will be a sleep-by-your-zafu, formal-oryoki-eating retreat. If this will be a sleep-in-a-bed, informal-dinner retreat, then the options change. Either way, I'll try my best to go.
-Untei

I believe an east coast locale would be best, since it is more geographically centered for the majority of our membership. West coasters can come a few times zones east while Europeans would come a few time zones west. I really do think it makes the most sense.

Hofstra University is a really beautiful college in New York on Long Island, and they often loan out their dorms to different groups in the summer. It's a train ride from JFK airport, and only an hour by train into Manhattan. The campus is actually an arboretum, so it's quite pretty. There's also the Long Island Zen center not far from it as well. It would help alleviate the travel time and expense (meaning from the airport to the retreat), and it would eliminate the biggest problem with New York which is the cost of hotels. I'm an alumni, so I could call and ask if there is an interest.